Review: Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router EA6500

[Note: This is the first in a series of reviews of wireless routers that use the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi protocol.]

I’ve been partial to Linksys wireless routers since I set up my first home network. They’ve been reliable, flexible and – particularly with recent models – easy to set up and maintain. I was a little concerned when the Linksys line was acquired from Cisco by Belkin, but after trying out one of the company’s high-end, 802.11ac routers, my fears seem unfounded.

For the past few months, I’ve been playing with the Linksys EA6500 router, also known as the AC 1750 HD Video Pro. It’s aimed at people like me who stream a lot of video. Since I’ve dropped cable and am relying on the Internet for my television and movie entertainment, the router has become an even more important part of my home network.

Linksys’ router designs have come a long way from the days of its ugly, black-and-blue boxes. The EA6500 looks like a square flying saucer, with a slightly curved, black top accented by a brushed metal band running down the center. This would actually look quite good in your living room, if you don’t mind the glowing white Cisco logo.

The router has four Gigabit Ethernet ports on the back, along with a fifth WAN port, which you use to connect your network or an Internet modem. There are also two USB ports, so you can connect both a printer and hard drive. Unfortunately, these are USB 2.0 ports, rather than faster USB 3.0 connections. That means a bottleneck for video and data stored on an external USB drive. On the upside, the EA6500 has a DLNA media server built in, which makes it easier to find and stream local video, images and music.

The EA6500 is backward-compatible with earlier Wi-Fi protocols, but its star attraction is the newest and fastest, 802.11ac. For details about the benefits of 802.11ac, read this blog post – but the key thing to know is that the newer protocol has a theoretical speed of 1.3 gigabits a second, which is faster than even hardwired, Gigabit Ethernet, which is 1 Gbps. Of course, you won’t actually achieve these top speeds for a variety of reasons, including transmission overhead and interference, but in general the performance of an 802.11ac connection will outshine older Wi-Fi protocols.

I tested the router with a new Apple MacBook Air, which has an 802.11ac adapter included. When compared to an older MacBook Pro with an 802.11n adapter, the speed increase was dramatic.

I placed a 221-megabyte file on the hard drive of an iMac connected via Gigabit Ethernet to the router, then downloaded the file wirelessly. The router is in the center of my 3-story townhome, and I was seated on a couch on the second floor while downloading. The MacBook Pro took 16 seconds to download the file, while the Air took a mere 6 seconds.

Unfortunately for cord-cutters like me, there are few if any 802.11ac devices designed for video streaming. That said, the EA6500 performed like a champ when connecting to either an Apple TV or a Roku 3, which both use 5-GHz 802.11n. The connection was rock solid, and I had no issues that I could identify as the router’s fault.

But there’s a cool feature that can help with cord cutting – a setting that lets you say which devices, applications or games on your network get priority. Put your streaming devices at the top of the list to ensure a more solid connection.

If it’s been a while since you last set up a Wi-Fi router, you’ll be pleased with how easy Linksys makes it. Use the install disk that comes with the router or download the latest software from the Linksys site. You’ll need to set up a Linksys Smart Wi-Fi account, which lets you access your router from anywhere on the Net. Once logged in, you’ll get a customizable, graphical home screen that’s much more intuitive than the arcane, text-based screens found in older Linksys routers.

You can also access the router via iOS and Android apps on your mobile device. These apps allow you to control and configure most aspects of the router.

The EA6500 allows you to have up to three different connection streams. There’s the 5 GHz stream for 802.11ac and 802.11n connections, and two 2.4-GHz streams. One works with 802.11n and older Wi-Fi protocols, and the other is a Guest connection that blocks access to the other computers on your network. You can turn the Guest connection off when it’s not needed.

If you’re a cord cutter with streaming video as a priority on your network, the EA6500 is a great choice. Even if you don’t yet have an 802.11ac streaming device, this router provides a reliable connection and gets your ready for faster devices in the future.

The EA6500 lists for $199, but you can generally find it for around $150 online. Linksys has since released a newer model, the EA6900, which lists for $230 but is generally available for $200.